In pharmacological studies in the urological field, the urine amount and the number of urinations of an animal are measured and the measured data is used as an indicator for examining the health condition of the animal and an effect of a medication. In addition, in order to examine the health condition of the animal and the effect of the medication in detail, the measurement of a urination rate and the use of the urination rate as the indicator are in demand. Although the measurement of the urine amount of the animal has been carried out conventionally by, e.g., visually checking a change in urine amount collected in a measuring cylinder at predetermined time intervals, the conventional measurement has had a problem that the conventional measurement requires a large amount of labor.
In order to solve the above-described problem, there is developed an automatic urine measuring device for a small animal using an electronic balance which has the purpose of automatically removing noises and further automatically determining the urine amount (see Patent Document 1). In addition, there are developed a water drinking amount/urine amount automatic measuring device for an animal and a system using the device which automatically measure the water drinking amount and the urine amount continuously and simultaneously to allow the acquisition of time-sequential data collectively indicative of the water drinking amount and the urine amount and automatic outputting of the detailed data only when an animal drinks water or urinates (see Patent Document 2).
[Patent Document 1] Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. 2002-365283
[Patent Document 2] Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. 2006-226919